Runner Runner

Were it not for the presence of Ben Affleck, fresh off his award-winning success on Argo, Runner Runner probably would have been stuck with an early year January or February release date, rather than a prime Fall weekend.  The movie probably would have been more at home when the competition is less fierce, as this is a middling and uninspired little thriller that never manages to generate any real thrills.  It's the kind of movie audiences won't remember three months from now, and I'm sure the cast (which also includes the talented Justin Timberlake) won't mind one bit.

As the film opens, we're introduced to Timberlake's character, a graduate student at Princeton University named Richie Furst.  Richie is obsessed with on line gambling, and has even made it into a business on the campus.  But the Dean of the college is starting to get wise, and threatens to expel him from the school.  This doesn't stop him from making a last ditch effort to pay off his tuition.  Richie decides to bet all his savings of $17,000 on an on-line poker game, which he promptly loses.  However, Richie believes he has proof that the guy he played against on line cheated, and so he hops on a flight to Costa Rica with the intention to confront the owner of Midnight Black, the world's largest on line gambling website.  The owner of the site is Ivan Block (Affleck), whom Richie is told is impossible to track down.  Naturally, this means it takes Richie a good two minutes of screen time to find him.  This is the first indication of how hurried the rest of the film will eventually feel, to the point where it feels like large chunks of the narrative is missing.

Richie gets a private meeting with Ivan, and the two actually manage to hit it off.  Not only does Ivan offer him back the money he lost to the cheat, but he also offers him a job in his luxurious and illegal underground casino world.  A movie that digs deep into the world of on line gambling could make for a really successful thriller, but Runner Runner is not it.  The movie skims the surface of its own potential, as it shows Richie first enjoying his new found job and easy money lifestyle, and then learning too late that it all comes with a hefty price.  Ivan's criminal dealings slowly come into light, and Richie soon finds himself caught between vicious gangsters, and shady lawmen who are trying to bring Ivan's empire down, and want Richie's help in doing so.

It doesn't take long for the reality about this film to sink in with the audience - Not only have we seen all this stuff before, but we're not seeing it being done particularly well here.  Everything is so middle of the road here, it's impossible for it to make an impact.  The characters are so thinly defined, we can't exactly drum up much enthusiasm for Richie to get out of the situation he's gotten himself into, nor can we truly hate the villain, Ivan.  The movie is a study in indifference, and that's the last thing you want when you are making a fast-paced thriller.  Nothing connects, and nothing resonates.  And if you can put Timberlake and Affleck in the same movie, and have nothing connect or resonate, then you only have yourself to blame, I say.

The strangest thing about Runner Runner is how nothing builds during the course of it.  You would expect for the action to ratchet up at some point, or for the stakes to be raised at some point, but it never happens.  The movie has a curious air about itself, where it just seems it can't get excited about its own story.  Oh, the cast is playing along just fine, but they're given nothing to do by the screenplay.  At first, we in the audience find ourselves asking what they saw in the script that was worth signing on for in the first place.  Soon, that question turns to why did we bother spending our money on the film?  That's a harder question to answer, especially when there's already a small number of great films that have come out the past few weeks that are much more worthier of your hard-earned movie dollar.

The movie's far too mediocre and forgettable to do any real damage to anyone's career.  They'll move on, and it will probably never or seldom be talked about ever again.  For a movie like this, that's all you can hope for.  The cast and crew got paid, they got to spend a couple months in Costa Rica, and hopefully they have much more worthy projects picked to follow this up.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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